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Want to get a general idea of how people feel about the rule of three. I like the fact it prevents the spam of the cheesy units, but I also like to run armies that are just a horde of a single unit. A lot of times this even results in an unbalanced list that hurts more than helps...

I follow my local meta, which uses the rule of three and sometimes uses ITC rules for terrain and such (despite most people complaining about those rules.)

I've sort of always played my own Rule of 3, in that I've never wanted to own more than 3 of any model/unit anyhow.

I do, but more because I don't really want to own more than three squads of anything other than troops and transports

I do. It's a reasonable approach to limit unit spam and in my experience has only helped balance.

Our group does.

Personally I don't own more than three of anything beyond a couple troop choices so it had zero impact on my armies/collection.

One of the advantages of not being interested in tournament/meta/spamming.

I do. although I wish I wouldn't have to. It is a stupid rule.

It kinda depends. Someone bringing a biker army and someone bringing 8 TS Daemon Princes are two armies I'd react differently to.

IMO, the Rule of Three has no place outside of tournaments. And it's only necessary there because GW's dev team has the balancing ability of an inebriated badger with Meniere's disease.

But I've never personally fielded more than 3 of any non-Troops unit in an army, so the existence of the rule doesn't bother me. Must suck for people who play armies with a very limited choice of certain battlefield roles (e.g. SoB, DE), though.

Our meta at the moment are small 750 point games so it's the rule of two for us :|
Does not seem to hurt too badly for my guard but makes my all LRBT spearhead illegal :(

meleti wrote:
It kinda depends. Someone bringing a biker army and someone bringing 8 TS Daemon Princes are two armies I'd react differently to.

^-this-^

your 9 flyrants/sheildcaptbikes are just ridiculous, be more creative. unless you're supposed to have x# of unit like White Scars/saim hann bikes, khorne berserkers, etc then it makes sense.

By accident. I have hobby ADD so I rarely build/paint the same thing 3 times.

Where is this ro3 officially published?
Have I missed something?

 Ratius wrote:
Where is this ro3 officially published?
Have I missed something?

Page 5 of the WARHAMMER 40,000: THE BIG FAQ (SUMMARY AND BETA RULES). It's presented as an optional rule for Organised Events, but most people are running with it.

I do, but I don't own more than 3 of any unit so it's pretty easy!

There's a general feeling in my group that we probably shouldn't buy more than 3 now. Partly out of worry that the rule becomes mandatory, but more because it does feel a bit spammy to run more than 3 anyway.

 Duskweaver wrote:
IMO, the Rule of Three has no place outside of tournaments. And it's only necessary there because GW's dev team has the balancing ability of an inebriated badger with Meniere's disease.

Since I see this opinion a lot, does this same thinking also qualify for the unit limits in 2nd? The rule of three being replaced by individual unit restrictions make more sense?

I always chat up my opponent and see if they want to, as long as it is fluffy and not a WAAC move, I don't mind. I like to bring all 4 of my OoF that I scratch build, and only three Valks or vendettas hurts my play style, since Elysians lost Valks as dedicated transpo.....

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 Duskweaver wrote:
IMO, the Rule of Three has no place outside of tournaments. And it's only necessary there because GW's dev team has the balancing ability of an inebriated badger with Meniere's disease.

Since I see this opinion a lot, does this same thinking also qualify for the unit limits in 2nd? The rule of three being replaced by individual unit restrictions make more sense?

Probably.
One would not even per se need a hard restriction as in 0-2 Terminatorsquads. I think something more in line with the Relic / Hellforged system from FW.
On the other hand couple it with detachment's. That would probably also incentivise the other detachments compared to the standart Battalion that everyone is using atm. You could even drop the restrictions for certain units in certain detachments, (e.g Stormboyz in a detachment that gives more assult slots, balanced could that be via CP generation of those specific detachments, allready the specialist detachments like vanguard, spearhead,etc don't give enough CP to be considered, might aswell incentivice it.

I do partly because my local meta does and for the most part it does help balance the game in some ways. If you want to blame anyone for what many look at as a stupid rule you can blame the people that thought it was a good idea to spam 7 Flyrants or entire armies of dark reapers. If someone shows up with a fluffy list that breaks the rule I'll be more than happy to play it, if it's for super cheesy competitive cluster chances are I won't fight you or I'll bring something even worse to teach you a lesson

Yep, its a good rule, I follow it and so does everyone in my shop.

Only because we fething have to. It's a trash rule that accomplishes literally none of the things it set out to do while actually making army balance WORSE.

but...but...mah unit diversity??? LOL no. Look at the top lists from every event we've had since that rule dropped. They're completely cookie cutter with the maximum amount of souping possible.

Spam was downright interesting by comparison.

Only for competitive play, but most of the games I had been playing were prep for competitive play, so pretty much always We're taking a summer break in the group, and when we get back into things in the Fall we'll likely be doing narrative stuff, so the rule of 3 definitely won't come up.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
Since I see this opinion a lot, does this same thinking also qualify for the unit limits in 2nd? The rule of three being replaced by individual unit restrictions make more sense?

Restrictions on specific units are... less awful, at least. Although they often seemed to have exceptions. For example, IIRC in 3rd edition CSMs were limited to 0-1 unit of Raptors per army, but Night Lords could field as many as they wanted. Which rather implies that the original 0-1 restriction had nothing to do with balance anyway.

But, in general, units should be designed and costed appropriately so that spamming them isn't gamebreaking. If fielding 4 of a particular unit wrecks the game, then there's either something wrong with the design of the unit or it is badly undercosted. Ruling that you can only field 3 of them doesn't fix those problems, it just hides them.

I have a much more fun time typically following the rule of 1. Both sides of the table seem to enjoy those games more.

There are times I take a second Falcon or Dev squad or Warlock, but the more variety in a list, the more the opponent tends to enjoy the game.

In my experience, people are much more likely to enjoy the game losing to a dozen different units than a dozen copies of the same unit. They might not have any good options for what to do, but at least they have options.

But then, I don't play in tournies anymore.

(note - i don't follow that rule strictly. Back in 7th, 2 or 3 1-man Crisis teams with different loadouts wasn't uncommon, because they might be the same sheet, but they were different threats. Further, when I do duplicate Devs or Falcons, it's typically with different weapons.)

I don't know why I ever would like to have more than 3 of any unit besides troops.
Yeah, more than 3 poxbringers would be nice I guess, but that's just because they're awesome and probably even undercosted.

However, having said that, I'd like for some armies whose iconic units are placed in other slots since 8th edition to be able to field these in a higher number. Like Raptors for Night Lords, or Bikes for White Scars.

Most unfortunately I have begun to follow the rule of three.
I don't even know why. I hate it. I don't play in any competitive play aside from games against my most competitive friend.
It's completely ruined how I was fielding Kommandos and Burna boys. The reality was I was capping at 4 units of burnas in what I saw as a balanced list. Kommandos on the other hand were go big or go home and brought to speed up game play after reading about all the slow play games going on. In the end it always came down to what I saw as a balanced list with the power turned up just a little. My most competitive opponent is fairly unaffected by the rule of three by playing a powered up imperial soup so I remain at a disadvantage in the area of on table ability which I was making up for by min/maxing some units in my lists but oh well I guess.
If I was going to fix competitive play to solve my issues with the rule of three as a thing. I would just have one tournament only foc with predetermined number of slots and a fixed number of command points and change that every few months to try to keep things balance and interesting with minor changes to the rules. This I would hope would make a clear distinction between modes of matched play.
We still used matched play rules because of our years of using points, I don't really see that going away in my group.
In the end the only one forcing me to use the rule of three is me so I guess I just need to remember I can do what ever I want when I make my next list.

Don't need to.
If I wanted more than 3 units I'd be doing it as a gaks and giggles list.

I doubt anyone cares if I've got 6 units of grot tanks on the table.
It's funny

I started playing in 4E when the only "detachment" was the Force Organization Chart:
1-2 HQ
2-6 Troops
0-3 Elite
0-3 Fast
0-3 Heavy

That was it, and you could only take 1 FOC. period. No one could ever take more than 3 of anything that wasn't Troops or DTs
I got use to not getting more than 2-3 of any 1 choice and it just sorta stuck.
I've basically been playing my own Rule of 3 since then, even when you could start taking 2 FOC and later more detachments.

There several reason why this is a good idea.
1) Balance, obviously
2) Variety. Your opponent will appreciate not having to deal with the same unit more than 3x. It makes the game more fun.
3) Protection from nerfs. What I mean by this is that if you spam a unit 4+ times because it's super good, you can expect that unit is getting a nerf eventually. By limiting yourself to 3 or less of any particular unit, you avoid having tons of worthless models when the inevitable rules changes this them.
By having a variety in your collection, you can better adapt to changes without having to basically buy a whole new army

Now, if you are just doing "gaks & giggles" lists, then no one cares, so it doesn't matter. Go crazy

-

 Galef wrote:
I started playing in 4E when the only "detachment" was the Force Organization Chart:
1-2 HQ
2-6 Troops
0-3 Elite
0-3 Fast
0-3 Heavy

That was it, and you could only take 1 FOC. period. No one could ever take more than 3 of anything that wasn't Troops or DTs
I got use to not getting more than 2-3 of any 1 choice and it just sorta stuck.
I've basically been playing my own Rule of 3 since then, even when you could start taking 2 FOC and later more detachments.

There several reason why this is a good idea.
1) Balance, obviously
2) Variety. Your opponent will appreciate not having to deal with the same unit more than 3x. It makes the game more fun.
3) Protection from nerfs. What I mean by this is that if you spam a unit 4+ times because it's super good, you can expect that unit is getting a nerf eventually. By limiting yourself to 3 or less of any particular unit, you avoid having tons of worthless models when the inevitable rules changes this them.
By having a variety in your collection, you can better adapt to changes without having to basically buy a whole new army

Now, if you are just doing "gaks & giggles" lists, then no one cares, so it doesn't matter. Go crazy

-

These are all good points, if you don't like the rule, play apoc.

I see too many people shun units just because they aren't as good as "insert magic sauce unit here". I want to face variety not 6 units of eldar star cannon spam...

 Galef wrote:
I started playing in 4E when the only "detachment" was the Force Organization Chart:
1-2 HQ
2-6 Troops
0-3 Elite
0-3 Fast
0-3 Heavy

That was it, and you could only take 1 FOC. period. No one could ever take more than 3 of anything that wasn't Troops or DTs
I got use to not getting more than 2-3 of any 1 choice and it just sorta stuck.
I've basically been playing my own Rule of 3 since then, even when you could start taking 2 FOC and later more detachments.

There several reason why this is a good idea.
1) Balance, obviously
2) Variety. Your opponent will appreciate not having to deal with the same unit more than 3x. It makes the game more fun.
3) Protection from nerfs. What I mean by this is that if you spam a unit 4+ times because it's super good, you can expect that unit is getting a nerf eventually. By limiting yourself to 3 or less of any particular unit, you avoid having tons of worthless models when the inevitable rules changes this them.
By having a variety in your collection, you can better adapt to changes without having to basically buy a whole new army

Now, if you are just doing "gaks & giggles" lists, then no one cares, so it doesn't matter. Go crazy

-

Outside of White Scar bike spam, I honestly don't know why people would want more than 3 of things in a list. The way some people post about it I'm curious if they're applying it to troops.